Wednesday, May 24, 2017

For the Love of Junk - Gardening

Hey Y'all - I thought I would share a few pictures from our junk yard! I planted flowers in April and they are starting to fill in nicely and my geraniums have even bloomed a second time. (That's a record for me, as I don't usually have good luck with geraniums!) Last year, my sweet mail lady shared the day lilies with me and they are blooming pretty this week.

For those of you who are new here or don't know the story of our gazebo, we rescued it from a trash ditch a few years back. Yes, it was rolled over on its side, all reddish brown, with a shingle roof, in a ditch. Actually there were two of them and our friend had spotted them and ask the property owner if he could get them. We got recruited to help load and haul them and got one gazebo in return! That was before we had great camera phones and I didn't document the rescue. For a season or two, the gazebo was in its found state, but I started landscaping around it and built the brick patio that connects to our house. Finally, we decided a makeover was going to happen! She got painted white and my husband and brother surprised me with a rusty tin roof!

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It was about the same time, that I decided I would no longer have plastic pots visible in my yard and started planting with recycled junk! That's when the real fun began and my yard took on a new personality. The only thing purchased new in a store is the hummingbird feeder and the solar lantern.

That crock was abandoned in a field. The rusty container the chives are in doesn't even have a bottom. In fact several of the planters shown, have rusted out bottoms. I hide the plastic flower pots by sitting them inside the metal ones. For the hanging buckets, the plastic hanging baskets have been wired to the top of the bucket and then I plant in them. (It's going on 5 years, with the same wires holding the same flower pots inside.)

I have 4-5 different pots arranged in the old wash tub. I mulch around the edges, so it looks like everything is planted in the tub. This makes it easy to switch out plants seasonally or when one begins to made away, I can change it out. I', surprised the geraniums are still holding on, since I don't have the greatest of luck with them. Why do they always look so good on everyone else's porch, but I struggle with them?

This was a beat up, rusty old water jug and I love to plant alyssum in it. Little lizard likes it too!

A broken clay pot, spills a bouquet of flowers into the oval dish pan and is hauled around in a rusty ol' wagon.

The bike has a gym locker basket full of creeping jenny.

I do have fun looking for unusual ways to plant in containers and giving life to abandoned items. As the words on one of my favorite t shirts read "For the Love of Junk Rescue ~ Reuse ~ Recycle"